Miranda Mary Piker

A character who was supposed to appear in the original book but was removed from the final version, Miranda Piker was the sixth Golden Ticket winner. Until the tour of Wonka's factory, she was a prissy, rude, beastly girl who believed that children should never play but do schoolwork, as well as never get days off or vacations from school (a belief shared by her father, who is a headmaster/principal of a prestigious school that she likely attends). She and her father end up presumably killed in the Spotty Powder mixer (her scream is presumably heard along with her father's), but she actually laughs, revealing the death to be surviving. Wonka leads her mother into a boiler room where she may be located, and the Oompa Loompas sing another song about how repulsive Miranda is. She may be from a rich family, like fellow tour group member Veruca Salt, as her father is paid a lot of money as a school principal. Miranda's departure, gory or not, was also supposed to come after Mike Teavee's (though Veruca Salt also appears in an illustration of her deleted chapter). As the "Spotty Powder" chapter is the only chapter published with the character in it, not much else is known about her, like how she obtains her Golden Ticket or the way she treats the other tour group members. She is described by Dahl as "a horrid little girl who was disgustingly rude to her parents and also thoroughly disobedient". Her full name, as stated by the Oompa Loompas in their short song about her (phoney) death, is Miranda Mary Piker.

In another draft she was the opposite of strict and not into school. In this draft, her death was her swimming in the chocolate river, before being sent to the Peanut Brittle Mxer. Read more on the story here

"Oh, Miranda Mary Piker,How could anybody like her,Such a rude and disobedient little kid,So we said why don't we fix herIn the Peanut-Brittle Mixer,Then we're sure to like her better than we did.Soon this girl who was so viciousWill have gotten quite deliciousAnd her parents will have surely understoodThat instead of saying, 'Miranda,'Oh the beast we cannot stand her!'They'll be saying, 'Oh, how tasty and how good!'"

Although Quentin Blake has drawn Miranda in an illustration for the deleted chapter (revealing her to be a girl with long brunette hair tied in braided pigtails and wearing glasses and a school uniform), this sketch by Lauren Child shows her with short and straight brunette hair, wearing no spectacles, and wearing a Catholic school-styled school uniform with long sleeves (as it is wintertime in the book). Her father is an obese-looking man with a bald head and tiny glasses, and her mother is a woman with brunette hair; these are, however, only Quentin Blake interpretations of Miranda and her parents.

Another discarded idea was that Wonka was working on a candy that would cause one day of sickness so that children could have time off from school, infuriating Miranda Piker and her father. But Dahl decided against it. Such idea could be used by the Oompa-Loompas to shirk their duties, but more importantly, Dahl wished for the story to show nasty traits of children and it seems counterintuitive for Willy Wonka to be encouraging bad behavior himself. While Charlie Bucket was certainly not like Miranda Piker, he was an earnest student who took his responsibilities seriously.

Miranda Piker

Family

unnamed mother and father

Home

Unspecified

Occupation

Student of an upscale school

Fate

Seemingly falls into the Spotty Powder mixer (or Peanut-Brittle mixer in Roald Dahl's Vile Verse) to be chopped to death but actually survives as she is really laughing